Kinect for Xbox 360: Signs it’s a holiday hit

Looks like Kinect for the Xbox 360 videogame console is one of the hot items of this year’s holiday shopping season. The maker of the motion-sending, controller-free gaming product (where the gamer’s the controller), Microsoft, says it’s scrambling to keep up with demand, having sold 2.5 million units worldwide in Kinect’s first 25 days, the Christian Science Monitor reports. To see if this makes Kinect (which sells for $150) a smash hit, Mashable compares debut sales to the 2006 pace of the Nintendo Wii’s launch and finds Kinect out in front – though the Wii sold for $250 and Kinect is a peripheral to the Xbox 360 and not the player itself (but maybe the harsher economic climate evens things out). “More importantly, the Kinect is driving the sale of new motion-based games and has given the Xbox 360 fresh blood that should keep it competitive with the Wii and [Sony’s] PlayStation Move for the next few years.” Here’s more on the Move, and here’s the all-important view from the 9-year-old game industry analyst at Washington Post reporter Mike Musgrove’s house (see also my earlier post, “Kid and family ‘Kinect-ing’ from Microsoft“). [BTW, online shopping in general hit a milestone this year: comScore reports that “Cyber Monday reached $1.028 billion in online spending, up 16% versus a year ago, representing the heaviest online spending day in history and the first to surpass the billion-dollar threshold.”]